Univ of California, California State U Campuses To Be Site Of Economic-Based Protests

The wave of anger at banks that has swept the country with the recent Occupy movement is coming to California college campuses next week.

A union-backed group calling itself Refund California is organizing protests on Wednesday at more than a dozen college campuses, including Sacramento State and UC Davis.

The group argues that banks created the country's economic collapse that decimated state budgets and led to massive tuition hikes in recent years. It is calling on leaders of California's public universities to pledge support for higher taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals as a way to restore funding for jobs and education.

The group sent letters Friday to University of California regents and trustees of the California State University, asking them to sign a pledge to support five items: increasing income taxes on California's wealthiest; changing Proposition 13 so that corporate property taxes could rise; enacting a federal sales tax on large-scale financial transactions; reducing underwater mortgage debt; and reversing tuition increases, layoffs, and cuts to public education and essential services.